Automobiles of the future will increasingly offer the possibility of automatic driving. Automatic driving means that the vehicle takes over both transverse and longitudinal driving operations. In a first stage of development, which corresponds to a partial automatic driving mode, the driver of the vehicle is to continuously monitor the operations of the vehicle and be able to intervene in critical situations at all times. In order to assure this, systems have been proposed to switch between the automatic driving mode and a user-controlled driving mode and to monitor alertness of the driver during the automatic driving mode. Initially, the automatic driving mode will be used in specific driving situations, for example, driving on a freeway or during parking. Vehicles must therefore be driven manually (i.e., in the user-controlled driving mode) in many situations still. For this purpose, as in a conventional automatic vehicle, a steering wheel, an accelerator pedal, and a brake pedal continue to be provided for vehicles having an automatic driving mode.
DE 10 2008 040 149 A1 (corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 8,493,199) describes a system for releasing the automatic driving of a vehicle in which cameras arranged within the vehicle monitor the alertness of the driver during an automatic driving mode.